📑 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation has compiled and issued a Report regarding the Situation with the Glorification of Nazism and the Spread of Neo-Nazism and Other Practices That Contribute to Fuelling Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance

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The report continues the efforts of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation to draw attention to the manifestations of various forms of glorification of the Nazi movement, neo-Nazism, racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in foreign countries.

The document reflects the line of Western countries aimed at fomenting rabid Russophobia. which has become one of the "manifestations" of their support for Ukraine against the background <...> Considerable attention is also paid to the actions of certain States, primarily the Baltic States, Poland and Ukraine, which <...> actively continue to destroy on their territory the entire array of Soviet and Russian, and often their own, memorial heritage and step up their activities to falsify the history of World War II.

🔻 The West is openly and unceremoniously changing historical concepts – from equating the Nazi regime with the "totalitarian" Soviet one to attempting to place all responsibility for the war on the Soviet Union and declare it "a criminal worse than the Third Reich".

🔻 The meaning and, most importantly, the essence of the verdict of the International Military Tribunal for the trial and punishment of major war criminals of the European Axis countries (the Nuremberg Tribunal) is being deliberately blurred.

🔻 The political elites of the overwhelming majority of European and North American "democratic" states are trying their best to conceal from the international community, including their own citizens, the Nazi essence of the policy of the Kiev and similar regimes.

The absolute majority of members of the international community share Russia's approaches to the glorification of Nazism and the justification of racism.

In 2023, the Russian resolution was supported by the majority of the world's countries – 1️⃣1️⃣8️⃣. 49 delegations voted against it, including the United States and Ukraine, as well as EU member states.

The manifestations of racial discrimination and glorification of Nazism pose a direct threat to the fundamental values of true democracy and human rights and a serious challenge to international and regional security and stability. <...>

☝️ Russia, together with like-minded countries, does not intend to tolerate such racist and neo-colonial approaches and will oppose them in every possible way.

⚡️ Joint Statement of the First Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum (Sirius Federal Territory, Russian Federation, November 10, 2024)

✍️ We, the Foreign Ministers of the Russian Federation and African States recognised by the United Nations (UN), Leadership of the African Union Commission and of executive bodies of the leading African integration organisations, as well as their representatives, gathered on 10 November 2024 in the Russian Federation, Sirius Federal Territory, to participate in the First Ministerial Conference of the #RussiaAfrica Partnership Forum.

We are pleased to note the strategic level of Russia-Africa cooperation, and positively assess the pace of the implementation of the agreements reached during the first (Sochi, 23-24 October 2019) and second (Saint Petersburg, 27-28 July 2023) Russia-Africa Summits and articulated in the final documents thereof, including the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum Action Plan 2023-2026.

We reconfirm our intention to continue strategic-level engagement in order to achieve a world order that would ensure international peace and security for all, equal opportunities for the development of all States, preservation of their cultural and civilizational uniqueness regardless of differences in political, economic and social structures, geographical location, demographic, resource and military potentials.

We welcome the adoption by heads of delegations participating in the First Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership of joint statements on:

• measures to create a fair, transparent and equitable system of International Information Security;
• strengthening cooperation in the fight against terrorism;
• current issues of exploration and use of Outer Space for peaceful purposes.

We reconfirm the shared responsibility of the Russian Federation and African States for supporting the creation of a just and stable world order based on the principles of sovereign equality of States, non-interference in their internal affairs, respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and the right of all peoples to self-determination as provided for, inter alia, by UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960, as well as the need to preserve national identity and national resources, cultural and civilizational diversity and to protect traditional values.

👉 Political Cooperation

We consider the development of constructive partnership with the African Union and the leading African integration organisations as a foreign policy priority of the Russian Federation and African States.

👉 Security Cooperation

We confirm the importance of the principle of "African Solutions to African Problems" in conflict resolution.

👉 Trade and Economic Cooperation

We express our readiness to continue joint efforts to strengthen the voice and representation of the African continent in the global economic governance architecture.

👉 Education, Health, Culture, Sports, Youth Policy and Media Cooperation

We welcome the dynamic cooperation between the Russian Federation and African States in the field of culture.

👉 Environmental and Climate Cooperation

We advocate for stepping up efforts to consolidate approaches to international environmental and climate issues within the specialised UN fora to prevent the politicisation of work in these areas.

***

The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and African States recognised by the United Nations, Leadership of the African Union Commission and the executive bodies of the leading African integration organisations, as well as their representatives, who participated in the First Ministerial Conference of the Russia‑Africa Partnership Forum express their commitment to further working together in order to expand cooperation and ensure the success of the third Russia-Africa Summit to be held in 2026.

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🎙 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the International Symposium 'Inventing the Future' (Moscow, November 4, 2024)

Key talking points:

• The global balance of power is undergoing transformative changes, driven by the objective trends in the world economy where the influence of the states of the Global South and the Global East, and indeed the World Majority, is growing.

• The economic resurgence enables an increasing number of non-Western nations to consistently bolster their sovereignty and to pursue a nationally oriented agenda in both foreign and domestic policy.

• Following the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, Washington and its allies, as part of the hybrid war they are waging, have launched an aggressive sanctions campaign against Russia. In the past decade, more than 21,000 sanctions have been imposed on our country across various domains, including economy, finance, trade, investment, media, culture, sport, and broadly, people-to-people contacts. These neo-colonial practices of the West primarily impact the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

• The adverse effect of this campaign against the undesired is that the West is undermining itself. <...> Western capitals have conveniently forgotten principles such as fair competition, the inviolability of property, the presumption of innocence, among others.

• When economic pressure fails to sway truly sovereign nations, the West, led by the United States, resorts to threats, blackmail, and even the use of force.

• It is sad to state that the ruling elites in many European countries evidently see no future for themselves in a multipolar world and are looking instead to the overseas hegemon to save them.

• The West is never satisfied with what they have. The war they started against Russia in Europe wasn’t enough.

• NATO now plans to conduct “defensive” operations in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait which lie thousands of miles away from its shores. Any right-minded observer knows that this path will lead nowhere.

• The obsession [of the West] with controlling absolutely everything has led to a rash of tragedies in the Middle East.

• This year, yet another independent UN member — Yemen — came under an aggression of the West [Anglo-Saxons]. The Syrian Arab Republic is still reeling from the shock of American interference. The United States has effectively blocked all multilateral mechanisms aimed at promoting the Palestinian-Israeli settlement.

• The serious challenges facing the world call for a united effort based on equality, rather than submission to those who seek global dominance.

• Establishing direct contacts and horizontal ties among all regional integration entities and with #BRICS which already includes the key countries that are regional leaders, is a significant step towards multipolarity.

• Another area of focus is the de-dollarisation of the international financial and economic system. I wish to remind you that the share of national currencies in Russia's transactions with the #SCO and #EAEU countries has surpassed 90%, and with the BRICS nations, we are approaching 65%. This figure continues to grow.

🇺🇳 People often ask: what will multipolarity rely on in terms of international legal foundation? There’s no need to look for new principles; they are all there in the UN Charter 👉 #UNCharterIsOurRules.

The problem is that our Western partners have never fully respected these principles.

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🗓 On November 9-10, Sochi hosted the First Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum at Sirius University.

Instituted by a decision of the Second Russia-Africa Summit in St Petersburg in July 2023, this new dialogue format is called on to become a certain coordinating mechanism for implementing objectives set by the heads of state and government.

Along with heads of foreign ministries and executive structures of integration associations, the event brought together sectoral ministers as well as representatives of parliamentary, public, academic and business circles of Russia and African countries, with over 1,500 people attended the event.

🌐 Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov chaired a plenary session, the conference’s high-priority event that involved 54 heads of official delegations from African states and regional integration associations. At the beginning of the plenary session, they read out greetings from the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and Chair of the African Union – President of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani.

The Ministers coordinated their positions on key issues of the international agenda as well as the Russian-African agenda, prioritising the implementation of the Action Plan of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum for 2023-2026. Also, they specified and coordinated long-term guidelines for expanding mutual collaboration still further.

📄 Four joint statements formalised common approaches towards addressing global problems and expanding cooperation with a focus on quality preparations for the Third Russia-Africa Summit:

👉 political statement,
👉 on international information security,
👉 on counter-terrorism measures,
👉 on peaceful use of outer space.

The conference’s packed business programme, including 20 panel sessions and specialised events, provided an additional impetus for diverse mutually beneficial cooperation. Experts and high-ranking guests discussed various high-priority issues in great detail, including food security and collaboration in the agro-industrial sector, training specialists for the real economy, geological prospecting, digitalisation, and cooperation in education, healthcare and youth policy. Representatives of the Eurasian Economic Commission and various African associations discussed mutual integration issues.

Elaborating on the provisions of the Declaration of the Second Russia-Africa Summit, the sides held specialised meetings on international information security, counter-terrorism efforts, and the prevention of an arms race in outer space. Representatives of Russian and African media outlets took part in an event on measures to combat the manifestations of neo-colonialism. 

🤝 Sergey Lavrov met separately with a majority of African delegations on the sidelines of the conference.

✍️ The Officials signed an extensive package of memorandums and agreements between Russia and a number of African states.

#RussiaAfrica

🇷🇺🇸🇦📞 President of Russia Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.

The Parties expressed satisfaction with the current level of the friendly and mutually beneficial ties between Russia and Saudi Arabia, and reaffirmed their commitment to continue the consistent expansion of political, trade, economic and humanitarian links.

They stressed the importance of continuing close coordination within OPEC Plus and stated the effectiveness and timeliness of the steps being taken in this format to ensure balance on the global energy market.

The President and the Prime Minister discussed the complicated situation in the zone of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and noted that the principled approaches of Russia and Saudi Arabia with regard to the Middle East settlement are essentially identical.

The Parties also shared their opinions on the successful #BRICS summit in Kazan and agreed to maintain contact.

#RussiaSaudiArabia

🎙 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Marina Kim for the New World project (Moscow, November 14, 2024)

Key talking points:

#InternationalAffairs

• Our main task now is to achieve all the goals formulated by President Vladimir Putin. You are aware of the West’s expectations. They are speculating about stopping the hostilities at a certain line and coordinating a truce, so that 10 years from now they will decide who Crimea and Donbass belong to. This is coffee cup reading. I won’t engage in it. We have our tasks, and we will fulfil them.

• Our job is to assert and promote Russia’s interests in keeping with its Constitution as well as the objectives defined by President Vladimir Putin. This goes beyond Ukraine and applies to Russia’s Foreign Policy Concept in general.

#USA

• Washington can’t allow Russia to prove that it is a strong player and undermine the West’s reputation. They don’t care about Ukraine. They only care about their reputation. They decided that Ukraine should have a government they like and didn’t expect anyone to protest. Russia? It’s a big country but it must be brought down a peg. That is what this is about rather than the future of the Ukrainian people. They don’t care about people.

• Sanctions have been imposed on over half of the world’s countries, even if they are not as drastic as those that have been adopted against Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran and Venezuela. The real reason behind the West’s current rage is that China is rapidly and confidently surging ahead of the United States.

• We can see through what the Americans want. Sitting somewhere overseas, they believe that they are beyond the reach, while leaving it to Europe to overcome the challenges they face in terms of encouraging and arming Ukraine to fight Russia, as well as footing the bill for the Middle East tragedy.

#Eurasia4You

• God gave us one continent, and we share it. This continent possesses immense and, in fact, the biggest natural resources, while several millennia-old civilisations inhabit it. Failing to benefit from these competitive advantages would be a mistake. This is what the idea of building a Greater Eurasian Partnership is all about, and the EAEU, SCO and ASEAN have already taken the first steps in this direction. We are establishing ties and promoting dialogue. If we succeed in fulfilling the plans we have, the Greater Eurasian Partnership will offer a solid foundation and serve as an economic and transport backbone for what President Vladimir Putin called a new Eurasian security architecture.

• There is a clear understanding that the Eurasian security architecture, just like the Greater Eurasian Partnership, must be open to all countries and continents, including Eurasia’s western part, even if so far the latter has been trying, as if by inertia, to ensure its interests within a Euro-Atlantic security concept instead of opting for the Eurasian framework, which would be natural and reasonable, considering the geography factor. This is their way of saying that they do not intend to do anything without the United States.

#BRICS

🌐 BRICS is about the new world order that is based on the main principle of the UN Charter – the sovereign equality of states.

• BRICS has no intention of dividing the world. It wants to bring together countries that desire closer relations so that they can live on the land they got from God and their ancestors just as they used to, as great civilisations.

#Africa

🌍 Decolonisation has taken place, in a broad sense. But being able to actually manage one’s freedom and resources is a different story. This is where neo-colonialism comes to the fore.

• The First Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum in Sochi, and the Russia-Africa Summit in St Petersburg in 2023 clearly put into perspective the trends that could be called Africa’s second awakening.

🇷🇺🇩🇪📞 President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Olaf Scholz, held for the first time since December 2022 at the initiative of the German side.

The Leaders had an in-depth and frank exchange of views on the situation in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin reiterated that the current crisis was a direct result of NATO's long-standing aggressive policy aimed at creating a staging ground against Russia on Ukrainian soil, while showing disregard for Russia's security concerns and trampling on the rights of Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine.

Speaking on the prospects for reaching a political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict, the President of Russia pointed out that the Russian side had never rejected and was still open to resuming the talks broken off by the Kiev regime.

Russia's proposals are well known and have been outlined, in particular, in the President’s speech at the Foreign Ministry in June. Any possible agreements must address:

• security concerns of the Russian Federation,
• rest on the new territorial realities,
• most importantly, eliminate the original causes of the conflict.

The discussion also touched on the state of affairs in relations between Russia and Germany. Vladimir Putin noted their unprecedented decline in all areas, caused by the unfriendly policy pursued by the German authorities.

It was emphasised that Russia had always honoured its commitments under various treaties and contracts in the energy sector and was still willing to promote mutually beneficial cooperation, if the German side showed interest in it.

Recent escalations in the Middle East were also addressed. Vladimir Putin informed Olaf Scholz on the efforts made by Russia to deescalate and seek peaceful solutions for the regional crisis.

The leaders agreed that following their telephone conversation, their aides would keep in touch.